Islamophobia -- now in
American Children's books
As if the
adult media's vitriol wasn't enough, the American Muslims are now being faced
by the alarming publication of a series of "children's books', containing
misleading and inflammatory rhetoric about the Islamic faith. The 10-book series
- entitled the "World of Islam," -- is published by Mason Crest
Publishing in collaboration with the Philadelphia-based pro-Israel and pro-war
Foreign Policy Research Institute. [8]
One of the
book in the series - "Muslims in America"
- says that "some Muslims began immigrating to the United States in order to transform
American society, sometimes through the use of terrorism." The cover of
Radical Islam features a machine gun and a Muslim head scarf, with what looks
like bloodstains underneath the scarf and the title word Radical. The book is
rife with incorrect information and fear mongering and ultimately seeks to
paint a picture that Muslims in America
are to be treated with suspicion and that they all have links to terrorism.
The latest
attempt to demonize Muslims and Islam came in the shape of a children coloring
book titled "We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids' Book of Freedom." The
36-page "graphic novel coloring book" published recently by St.
Louis, Mo. Publisher Wayne Bell virtually characterizes all Muslims as linked
to extremism, terrorism and radicalism, which may lead children reading the
book to believe that all Muslims are responsible for the tragedy of 9/11. It
could give a message to children that followers of the Islamic faith are their
enemies.
Criminalizing Muslim
communities
On August
24, 2011, the Muslim American community was shocked at the revelation that the
New York City Police Department have carried out covert surveillance on Muslims
with the help of the CIA. An Associated Press (AP) report published by the
Washington Post [9] exposed the NYPD spy program, which is allegedly being
conducted with the assistance of individuals linked to the CIA. Following a
month-long investigation, the AP reported that the NYPD is using covert
surveillance techniques "that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if
practiced by the federal government" and "does so with unprecedented help from
the CIA in a partnership that has blurred the bright line between foreign and
domestic spying."
The AP
report follows a recent Mother Jones [10] revelation that after years of
emphasizing informant recruiting as a key task for its agents, the FBI now
maintains a roster of 15,000 spies -- many of them tasked with infiltrating
Muslim communities in the United
States. "In addition, for every informant
officially listed in the bureau's records, there are as many as three
unofficial ones, according to one former high-level FBI official, known in
bureau parlance as "hip pockets." The informants could be doctors, clerks,
imams. Some might not even consider themselves informants. But the FBI
regularly taps all of them as part of a domestic intelligence apparatus whose
only historical peer might be COINTELPRO, the program the bureau ran from the
'50s to the '70s to discredit and marginalize organizations ranging from the Ku
Klux Klan to civil-rights and protest groups."
Earlier in
May 2011, a report by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at
New York University School of Law pointed out that since September 11, 2001,
the U.S. government has
targeted Muslims in the United
States by sending paid, untrained informants
into mosques and Muslim communities. According to the report - titled
"Targetted & trapped: Manufacturing the "Homegrown Threat" in the United
States" - ", this practice has led to the prosecution of more than 200
individuals in terrorism-related cases which the government has touted as
successes in the so-called war against terrorism. However, in recent years,
former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, local lawmakers, the
media, the public, and community-based groups have begun questioning the
legitimacy and efficacy of this practice, alleging that--in many instances--this
type of policing, and the resulting prosecutions, constitute entrapment, the
report said.
It's guilty until proven
innocent for American Muslim charities
One area of
major concern to American Muslims is the treatment of Muslim charities in the
post-9/11 era. In the name of "anti-terror financing campaign," the government
has launched a systematic campaign against the Muslim American charities. Soon
after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. government shut down three
major U.S.-based charities - Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, Global
Relief Foundation and Benevolence International Foundation - for allegedly
funneling support to terrorists.
Since 2001,
Islamic charities have struggled to deal with the uncertainty caused by the
material support provision. According to the Bill of Rights Defense Committee,
"Muslims fulfilling their obligation to contribute to [charity]"risk
inadvertently supporting a current or future [Foreign Terrorist Organization].
In 2004, in order to avoid this, Muslim leaders asked the DOJ for a list of acceptable
charities. The DOJ responded that their request was "impossible to fulfill' and
that it was "not in a position to put out lists of any kind, particularly of
any organizations that are good or bad.'" Several people have already been
jailed in the United States
for their charitable activities in the Islamic world. [11]
On
September 1, 2011, the US 5th Circuit Appeals Court was scheduled to hear
arguments on behalf of five convicted Holy Land Foundation (HLF) principles:
HLF Co-founder, President and CEO Shukri Abu Baker received 65 years in prison;
Co-founder, Chairman and former Executive Director Ghassan Elashi also got 65
years; Mohammed el-Mezain, former Chairman, Head of California Operation 15
years; Top fundraiser Mufid Abdulqader 20 years, and Abdulrahman Odeh, Director
of HLF East (New Jersey) 15 years.
The U.S.
Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has created at least two CMUs, or Communications
Management Units, (Terre Haute in Indiana and Marion in Illinois) where
overwhelmingly inmates are Muslim which include Ghassan Elashi, co-founder of
Holy Land Foundation and Rafil Dhafir,
an American doctor born in Iraq who was sentenced in 2005 to 22 years in prison
for violating sanctions against Iraq by sending money to a charity he had
founded there, as well as for fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and a
variety of other nonviolent crimes. He had no terrorism convictions or charges.
In the CMUs
the "management" part consists of denying inmates virtually all communication
with their families and the outside world. In its Terre Haute, Ind., facility,
the BOP is concentrating Arab and Muslim inmates and limiting them to mailing
one six-page letter per week, making one 15-minute phone call per month, and
receiving only one 60-minute visit per month.
Prisoners in
the two CMUs are not being punished because of any terrorist acts. "The vast
majority of these folks are there due to entrapment or material support
convictions," says CCR attorney Rachel Meeropol, who has communicated with most
of them.
Little
information is available about the secretive facilities and the prisoners
housed there. One secret unit came to light when supporters of an Iraqi-born
American physician, Dr. Rafil Dhafir, made public a letter he had written
describing his harrowing transfer to the new prison unit in Terre Haute. Dr. Dhafir called it "a
nationwide operation to put Muslims/Arabs in one place so that we can be
closely monitored regarding our communications."
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